


Missing

by Eireann



Category: The Last Kingdom (TV)
Genre: Attempted Kidnapping, F/M, Kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-04-08 01:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14093829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eireann/pseuds/Eireann
Summary: The warband from Wessex and Mercia have realised too late that their seizure of an empty Lundene was bait.  The real trap has snapped shut elsewhere...  And Father Beocca knows Thyra is at risk.





	Missing

**Author's Note:**

> The Last Kingdom is copyrighted to Carnival Film and Television. No infringement is intended and no money made.

I am no horseman.

In Alfred’s service I have endured days and hours of horseback travel, but our dear departed Leofric was not so far out when he quaintly observed one day that ‘Beocca rides like a sack of shit’.

But now ... now, dear Lord, give me the strength to hold on.  I kick my horse’s sides to urge it to greater speed, while every bound of its rump under the back of my saddle threatens to throw me over its neck.  I cling on like a limpet, the horse’s reins flying anyhow, its mane half-blinding me, while a jumble of frantic prayers tumble from my lips.  The ground beneath us is a blur of speed, but it is not only the wind of our going that stings tears from my eyes.

I shall do penance, I shall attend three Masses a day, I shall eat no bread for a month, but may the Lord God forgive me, all my trust now is in the man who leads us.  Uhtred, the son of my heart if not of my body; the warrior who is surely the only man now who can rescue us from Æthelred’s folly.  My heart contracts to a freezing knot of dread every time I recall the appalled realisation in Uhtred’s face that we had been lured not into a trap but away from one.

He said all along that women had no place with a war-party.  I must confess that I agreed with him, but I allowed myself to be blinded by the thought that Æthelred must be enamoured indeed of his bride to want her with him so desperately.  In which I could only sympathise with him, for if the Mercian lord’s love for Æthelflaed were anything like my own for my dear Thyra, he must grudge every moment of separation.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

The beats of my horse’s hooves in the turf hammer out her name.  Somehow I urge it to more speed, overtaking warriors who glance sideways at me in surprise.

Uhtred leads the flying skein of riders, his horse as swift and white as a seagull, its neck stretched in a headlong gallop, its rider leaning forward to urge it to even greater speed.  Divots of mud fly up from its hooves, spattering those behind, but none of us heed them.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

The camp comes into sight, the neat cluster of tents where last night we left our women safely bestowed and provided for.  Where I left Thyra, with God’s blessing and a prayer for her safety.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

It has pleased God to take some of the keenness from my sight with the years.  Maybe this is from too much bending over parchments, studying the lives of the Saints, or from carefully scribing Alfred’s documents.  He has too few clerks, but they are slow to train, and I know how the king values accuracy....  At this distance, the tents are but a blur in my vision, but I hear the wordless scream of fury fly back from the rider of the white horse, and the prayers freeze in my throat.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Alfred_

_Ælswith_

_Æthelred_

_(Beocca...)_

_... in manus tuas, Domine – Salve regina, mater misericordiae_ _– O piisima Virgo Maria, non esse auditum a saeculo quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia –_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

Now even my poor eyesight can see the ruin, the scattered bodies.

... _tua implorantem exilia –_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

Uhtred’s horse comes to a plunging halt near the empty wreck of the tent that housed Æthelflaed.  I see him gaze around frantically, dive into the tent and come out again.  At least there is not on his face the look of a man who has found a corpse, but of course that is not what he fears.

We have been tricked.  The daughter of the King of Wessex and the wife of the Lord of Mercia is a prisoner.

I fall from my own horse even before it stumbles to a halt.  I fear for Æthelflaed, of course I fear for her

_Alfred_

_Ælswith_

_Æthelred_

but the barbarian Danes have snatched up even women of no account.  All around us the hacked bodies of servants who must have tried to defend them sprawl, graceless and bloody.

_Te, Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, supplices deprecamur–_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

I begin running to and fro, calling for her, the piping of my voice as shrill and fearful as that of a lost child. “Thyra!  _Thyra!”_  I cannot even remember the colour of her robe, and hardly the exact colour of her hair; only the quality of her first tremulous smile, bestowed on me like the blessing of God.

The warriors of the warband are riding to and fro, adding their calls to the clamour.  Æthelred rides past me, his face the colour of chalk, and it takes all my Christian charity to remind myself that this disaster is the outcome of his excess of love for his wife and therefore not to be condemned; though it is clear that my boy Uhtred suffers from no such obligation, for the look he casts the Lord of Mercia is hardly seemly in the mere leader of a warband, even be he the ealdorman of Bebbanburg.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

There are woods close by.  Close enough to hold out some hope of sanctuary, but far indeed for a woman on foot pursued by barbarians on horseback.  And the trees are widely spaced, offering little by way of friendly concealment.

Uhtred too rides past me.  Of course he calls out for Æthelflaed, for she is the daughter of a king, but his glance at me is compassionate, and shows me all too clearly that he fears our efforts wasted.  The barbarians are long gone, and the woods are still and silent.

... _“Beocca!”_

My hopes are deluding me.  The call is faint and far, and surely nothing more than the call of some distant woodland bird, or some dæmon sent to taunt me.  But still it catches me into silence and stillness, and I see Uhtred’s head turn.

... _“Beocca!”_

 _“Thyra!”_ No dream after all, no cursed infernal delusion! Joy seizes me by the throat.

I begin running again, stumbling over the uneven ground, blind with tears.  _Laudetur Jesus Christus, l_ _audatio eius manet in saecula saeculorum–_

And there indeed she is, running to me through the trees, scrambling through the brambles without a thought of how they will tear her gown or scratch her poor thin legs; there is such joy in her face that it looks as though the sun has come out and shone upon it, a joy that no poor man such as I can possibly deserve, but neither of us think of that as finally we wrap our arms around one another in a passion of relief and delight.  Safe, she is safe, though her body trembles against mine and I track the course of tears down her face.  For one moment, may the Lord God forgive me, in the depths of my selfish soul I forget completely about Æthelflaed’s plight.  I am too caught up in the utter bliss of our reunion.

Of course, this does not last.  I cannot but feel compassion for King Æthelred, who has no such reunion for which to thank God, but it does not need Uhtred’s look of foreboding to tell me that the future now is bleak.  The barbarians have a hostage, and such is Alfred’s love for his daughter that there will be little he will not to do rescue her.  However much a king he is, he is a father too.  Even Ælswith, stern as she often is with those who do not follow the Lord (or who tempt her royal husband from the path of virtue he finds so hard), loves their daughter deeply.  Æthelflaed’s survival not only cements the alliance between Wessex and Mercia, but it keeps alight a lantern in Alfred’s heart that would be extinguished utterly by her loss.

The simplicity and cleverness of the stratagem suggests a thinking mind, and the obvious aim is the securing of a valuable hostage.  Doubtless all the churches will be ordered to pray for Æthelflaed’s welfare among the heathen, but in the meantime there will in due course be the business of bargaining.  The Danes will know full well what value Alfred and Æthelred place on the hostage; the cost will be high.  It sickens me to my belly when I realise just how high it is likely to be.

A faint smile softens Uhtred’s mouth as he sees our reunion, but his face is deeply shadowed with trouble.  He, too, knows what the future holds.  Doubtless he also knows on whom Alfred will call when hard business and harder bargaining must be done with the hated Danes.

 _In manus tuas, Domine..._ ‘In your hands, O Lord’... may our Saviour forgive the blasphemy, but the words are all too apt.

But in the meantime Thyra is safe.  My heart, that was on the verge of breaking, is whole again.  She looks at me and her smile is like sunshine breaking through a rainstorm, turning the sodden earth to gold.

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

_Thyra_

**The End**

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this, please leave a review... pretty please!


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